“I’m so glad we have this club in the Bryant school district!” A student from the middle school said, hoping that he would be able to come to one of the high school meetings.
The student was talking about the Gay Straight Alliance club, a club that students only have at the high school.
“I know that I had my hardest time in middle school,” senior Evan Goodrich, president of GSA, said. “We just want to go down to the middle school to talk with the students there and explain to them that it does get better, even here at Bryant.”
The club together formed a plan to reach out to the students at the middle school with the idea of traveling to the middle school and having an anti-bullying seminar.
“When our club goes down to the middle school, we plan to attempt to have an anti-bullying seminar,” senior Catie Junkins, vice president, said. “We also want to instate a club down there once we get it approved by the principal and get a teacher sponsor, so then the students wouldn’t feel so alone.”
Middle school was the first time that students were exposed to diversity since elementary school. High school is more accepting and tolerating than elementary and middle school.
“Middle school was one of the hardest parts for LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] kids,” Goodrich said. “It was the first time anyone got introduced into diversity of any kind because elementary was sheltered and the fact that it’s not anymore unfamiliar and scary to some students.”
The club still has to set up an arrangement on when they’ll be going to the middle school, but they want it to be soon.
“When we go to the middle school, we will bring the officers and some of the members to talk with the students,” Goodrich said.
They have a Facebook page, which is how the student from the middle school formed the idea of the club traveling to the middle school.
When the club meets, they talk about issues that they’re going through, or things they’ve heard about. Sometimes the officers will have videos for the students and will discuss them. Often, they bring up news stories that they’ve found and everyone will talk about it.
“I have some friends who had recently come out of the closet when the club first started, so we decided to join,” Junkins said. “They told me their stories from middle school and they all had the worst times then. We want to promote anti-bullying down at the middle school and help the students.”
